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wav, 320k or FLAC?


Spindrift

Which of this formats would you rather buy your music in?  

18 members have voted

  1. 1. Which of this formats would you rather buy your music in?

    • Wav $1.40/track
      4
    • FLAC $1.20/track
      5
    • 320k Mp3 $1.00/track
      9


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Shameless use of this site as a market survey tool :ph34r:

I run a non-profit site with digital delivery, and is curios to know.

Whatever format you would choose $0.65 goes to the artist.

I don't like to have to keep all three formats, two of them should be enough I hope.

But which?

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Shameless use of this site as a market survey tool :ph34r:

I run a non-profit site with digital delivery, and is curios to know.

Whatever format you would choose $0.65 goes to the artist.

I don't like to have to keep all three formats, two of them should be enough I hope.

But which?

199667[/snapback]

ideally, i'd take the wav formats, but they'd take a while to download so i'd probably opt for the 320kbps mp3, i've never used flac files so don't know much about them
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If you use LAME v3.90.3 to encode MP3s, with the setting:

--alt-preset cbr 320

Then you cannot tell the difference! This has been proven by blinded testing. I would say it is even overkill. There are some "problem samples" where MP3 as a format stumbles, but this is probably not a major concern. Whatever you do, there will always be some naysayers when it comes to MP3, but they generally have no rational reason. If you force them to do ABX testing on their own, they will fail.

 

As far as lossy formats go, AAC and Musepack can give better compression without loss of quality, but are not in wide usage.

 

But at the same time, if I am paying I really would prefer to have the FLAC. It is more an issue of trust. If the person selling the music can prove that he or she knows how to use LAME and that they are using the correct settings, I would purchase MP3s.

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Also, it is totally unecessary to sell WAVs. There are so many lossless encoders out there that can cut the size in half, and after decompression it gives the exact same WAV file. BIT-FOR-BIT exact copy. Anyone who demands WAVs over FLAC, LPAC, APE, etc is a fool.

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Thank you very much for your replies.

 

At the moment I am selling FLAC and 320k.

At least what I can see from your results it seems I got it right.

Off course the only reason someone would coose to download wav over FLAC would be that they are not familiar with the format.

But many of you seem to be already, and I will just have to do my best to inform the ones that aren't I guess.

 

Cheers

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my question is: Why do you have to charge more for Flac than for mp3, if the process of encoding is not harder, and it doesnt require any extra costs?!

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Storage costs is negetable, since a run the server myself, but yes, harddrives cost money as well.

However bandwidth might become an issue if many people choose FLAC rather than 320k mp3.

The FLAC files is about three times bigger.

They costs of serving increase of course with the filesize.

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If you use LAME v3.90.3 to encode MP3s, with the setting:

Then you cannot tell the difference!  This has been proven by blinded testing.  I would say it is even overkill.  There are some "problem samples" where MP3 as a format stumbles, but this is probably not a major concern.  Whatever you do, there will always be some naysayers when it comes to MP3, but they generally have no rational reason.  If you force them to do ABX testing on their own, they will fail.

199680[/snapback]

The reason is not so much of hearing a difference between 320 and FLAC, but having the file with the original CD quality means that in the future you can encode it to whichever format necessary at that time. With mp3s re-encoding a lossy format will reduce the overall quality.

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ok first of all, it has not been 'PROVEN', it has been seen that IN GENERAL, MOST people dont hear a difference.... this doesnt mean everybody is the same, and you shouldnt consider it as a proof

 

 

second, I believe on the effect of specific frequencies and combinations of frequencies in people's minds... Even if you dont CONSCIOUSLY hear something, doesnt mean your brain is not actually receiving that and creating a certain effect in your mind....

 

also, I guess that sometimes there are frequencies which you may not hear (like very low frequencies), but the body feel, like in an outdoor party with big sound system, and that 'body-only' frequencies are cool and important too

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A 320k mp3 will still have the full frequency range though. You are not really reducing sample rate by making mp3's in hi-res format.

 

What redeemer says is a very valid point though. Maybe you like to make a lower bitrate to have on your mp3 player. In that case you would surely be much better of with a FLAC as source.

 

I think with PROVEN cubensis means that very very few people can hear the difference between a wav and well compressed 320k mp3. The people that can says it requirers a bit of training to do so. So for purposes of distribution it is not a major concern if not even 1% can tell the difference if they have top equipment and really try to.

Most people belive that they can hear the difference until they made a blind test though. That is more of a concern if you try to distribute digitally.

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Redeemer, that is a good point.

 

Sherlock, sorry but you are wrong. If you blind tested some psy track, you would not be able to tell the difference. You can belive what you want, but that is not the same as objective proof (i.e. the results of ABX testing by multiple people carried out @ http://www.hydrogenaudio.org ). There are some "problem samples" which MP3 cannot encode perfectly at any bit rate, but this is a very minor concern.

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